International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet is a system of phonetic notation used by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) the human vocal apparatus can produce. It is intended as a notational standard for the phonemic and phonetic representation of all languages.
History
It was originally developed by French and British language teachers (led by Paul Passy) under the auspices of the International Phonetic Association, established in Paris in 1886 (both the organisation and the phonetic script are best known as IPA). The first official version of the alphabet appears in Passy (1888). These teachers based the IPA upon the Romic alphabet of Henry Sweet (1880–1881, 1971), which was formed from the Phonotypic Alphabet of Isaac Pitman and Alexander John Ellis (Kelly 1981).
The alphabet has undergone a number of revisions during its history, including some major ones codified by the IPA Kiel Convention (1989); the most recent revision was in 1993, updated again in 1996. The extIPA was first created in 1991, revised to 1997; the VoQS (Voice Quality Symbols) was proposed in 1995 to provide a system for more detailed transcription of voice production (Ball and others 1995).
Description
The IPA is primarily a phonemic alphabet, what MacMahon (1996) has termed a "selective" phonetic alphabet. The IPA aims to provide a symbolization of every constrastive sound occuring in human language. This means that the IPA is not primarily concerned with non-contrastive sounds. For instance, a flap and a tap are two different articulations, but since no language has (yet) been found to make a phonemic distinction between these two sounds the IPA does not provide a unique alphabetic letter (or diacritic) and instead provides a symbol (i.e. [ɾ]) that will cover both of these articulations. As a result, there does exist some ambiguity in IPA usage. However, it is important to note that in actual practice the IPA is used as true phonetic alphabet, especially through the use of diacritics.
The symbols chosen for the IPA are generally drawn from the Latin and Greek alphabets. The IPA has also created new symbols that are often modified versions of Latin letters.
The sound-values of the consonants that are identical to those in the Latin alphabet in most cases correspond to usage in English as well as many other European languages: [b], [d], [f], [g], [h], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p], [s], [t], [v], [w], [z].
The vowel symbols that are identical to those in the Latin alphabet ([a], [e], [i], [o], [u]) correspond roughly to the vowels of Spanish or Italian. [i] is like the vowel in piece, [u] like the vowel in food, etc.
Most of the other symbols that are shared with the Latin alphabet, like [j], [r], [c], [x] and [y], correspond to sounds those letters represent in other languages. [j] has the sound value of English y in yoke (= German, Scandinavian or Dutch j); whereas [y] has the ancient Greek, Scandinavian, and Old English value of the letter (= Finnish y, German y or ü, French u, or Dutch uu.) The general principle is to use one symbol for one speech segment, avoiding letter combinations such as sh and th in English orthography.
Latin letters that share a particular modification often correspond to similar sound. For example, all the retroflex consonants have the same symbol as the equivalent alveolar consonants, except with a rightward pointing hook coming out of the bottom. Although there is an amount of correspondence between modified letters, generally the IPA does not have a systematic relationship between graphic shape and articulation. For instance, there is not a consistent relationship between lowercase letters and their small capital counterparts nor are all labiodental consonants linked through a common character design.
Diacritic marks can be combined with IPA signs to transcribe slightly modified phonetic values or secondary articulations. There are also special symbols for suprasegmental features such as stress and tone.
The International Phonetic Association recommends that a phonetic transcription should be enclosed in square brackets ("[" and "]"). A transcription that only denotes phonological contrasts (a "broad transcription") may be enclosed in slashes ("/"). For example some dialects of the English word pretzel in a phonetic (or "narrow") transcription would be [pʰɹ̥ɛʔtsɫ̩], which notes several phonetic features that are not contrasted phonologically. An equivalent phonological (or "broad") transcription could be /pɹɛtsl̩/ or even /prɛtsəl/.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
